Special Courses

The Black and Gold 1975

Special Courses Display Flexibility, Versatility for Individual Needs

The Special Education program was designed to help students such as the visually handicapped and others with learning difficulties. Students were trained and assisted academically, socially and vocationally.

In the special ed classes, during the sophomore year, the students were introduced to the courses. Instructors refreshed and reviewed some of the academic lessons learned from the previous years.

In the junior year, the instructors involved the students in the occupational fields; such as carpentry, cashiering, hotel work, building and grand maintenance, auto mechanics, food services, and power sewing.

As seniors, the students were placed in a part-time job, in order to develop some on-the-job experience, so that upon their graduation, they could work on a full-time basis for their present and future security.

Auditorally and visually handicapped students had their own resource rooms and teachers to aid them in their studies in regular classes at McKinley.

In an effort to bridge cultural and language barriers, the TESOL and Americanization programs sought to help foreign students blend into their new surroundings as students of McKinley.

Taking place of a regular English credit, TESOL (Teaching English to Speak to Other Languages) enabled foreign students to pick up basic English skills.

Americanization, a newly developed program worked toward adjusting non-native speakers at McKinley to the American culture in its Hawaiian setting.

Rounding out the academic curriculum were the school service, study hall and off campus "classes".

School service enabled students to provide vital services to the school while obtaining credits. For those students who needed a free period to catch up on their studies, study hall provided a necessary non-credit outlet. Other students who had part time jobs, had the option of taking off campus in order to meet the situation.

McKinley High School Class of 1977

40th Reunion Summer 2017